Is there a doctor in the house?
I will do just about anything to avoid going to a doctor. I'll self medicate, suffer prolonged periods of discomfort, even take prescriptions that don't belong to me (oh, my gasp gasp!). It isn't a fear of doctors or hospitals that I have. It is more of an utter disdain for the modern medical establishment. I find most doctors are pompous asses who truly believe their paper education on human anatomy qualifies them to better tell me what I am feeling in my own body. A complete disregard for the ignorant masses who live within these frail, inept machines of flesh pervades medicine. Nurses are not much better. Personally, you can have the lot. I have to be in a serious state of illness and/or confusion to see me face to face with a doctor.
So then, is it any surprise that I have yet to see a doctor this pregnancy. I'm 16 weeks along and the only reason I've seen anyone at all is because while in Chicago I had a bout of spotting that sent me into miscarriage flashback mode and I wouldn't rest until I saw via ultrasound a little bitty blob of a baby with a flickering heartbeat. Honestly, I could have done without the doctor and his dingbat nurse... and the damn Foley catheter they inserted into my urethra (oh, they just love their invasive procedures, don't they?)... and the fifteen blood tests they took... and don't get me started on the triage nurses and their complete lack of patient privacy, respect, or compassion. If they'd have just pointed me in the direction of the ultrasound machine, I would have done the damn ultrasound all myself. In fact, they had a student in there doing mine and I did help her. Look Ma! No classes!! I can do it all myself!
And I am.
It's not as if I'm not getting any prenatal care. I am just doing it all myself. I have a doppler and I listen to the baby's heart beat. I check my blood pressure using the monitor they have at the gym. I have a scale and weigh myself once a week. I am going to borrow (or buy) a glucose monitor and do my own 1 hour glucose test (using jelly bean instead of that god awful, nasty horrible orange gag it down concoction). I've thought about buying those urine test strips to check for sugar or protein in my urine, but honestly, I think if I have the glucose monitor and use that periodically and monitor my blood pressure and edema, there's no need. So, there it is. I am my own doctor.
Actually, truth be told, I think going to a doctor because you are pregnant is akin to going to a mechanic with a perfectly good, brand new car. You are only asking for trouble. Doctors (and mechanics for that matter) are trained to find out what is wrong with you and fix it. If you are pregnant, ain't nothing wrong, ain't nothing to fix. But, trust me, if you go to a doctor while pregnant (just like if you take your fresh off the lot car to a mechanic), he's gonna find something wrong and try to fix it. Usually, that ends up screwing up the perfectly functioning machine and throwing the whole damn process off kilter. My previous two pregnancies I stuck with midwives and learned from them that I'm making this baby all on my own. My body knows what it is doing. Sure, there may be a few bumps in the road, and if the need be, I'll have them checked. But otherwise, I'm absolutely able to do this completely alone. As have millions of women before me.
All this ranting aside, however, the fact that I have not seen a doctor or nurse or midwife this pregnancy has less to do with my own beliefs and more to do with the fact that the US military is farming me out to the Koreans. Allow me to explain. Mike is a Defense contractor. In the scheme of all things first come, first served, active duty members come first, followed by spouses and children, retirees and their families, DoD employees and their children, then the contractors themselves. After that come stray dogs and cats, North Korean women and children, wild birds, Canadian English teachers, enemy combatants, and then finally the lowliest of them all, the families of DoD contractors. Basically, what I'm saying is that you, whoever you are, reading this right now, YOU would come before me if seeking medical treatment at the Army hospital on base here.
When I was informed of this new policy (and yes, it is new -- we wouldn't have come here and gotten pregnant if we were told this up front), I asked where I could get a list of doctors that would take my insurance or that at least speak English. We don't have that, I was told. Call up a Korean hospital, was the suggestion.
"Got the number?" I asked.
"I'm not a phone book," was the more than helpful reply.
There it is. I don't know who to call, where to go, and who, if anyone, takes Aetna insurance. And quite frankly given my dislike for doctors, I'm just as happy to avoid the whole lot of them anyway. From what I've been told by my Korean friends, Korean doctors are even more arrogant and assnine than Americans. If you can believe it. So I'm just prick and pickled to have the perfect excuse to avoid the lot.
And yet, I do want to have my big 20 week ultrasound. Being 35 (I'll be 36 shortly after the baby is born), I want to see that my eggs haven't gone bad leaving me with a limbless child lacking ears or a nose. I look forward to it as a milestone in my pregnancy, a time to breath a small sigh of relief. But no doctor, no ultrasound. I finally went into the patient representative's office at the base hospital. There a friendly little Korean gal listened to my plight, picked up the phone and arranged for me to get an ultrasound. She handed me a slip of paper with the date (September 19th) written on it.
"Come to back of hospital before noon. There a van waiting, take you to ultrasound," she said in a whispered voice. Then, I swear, she looked around before continuing, "Bring $150 cash with you."
I thanked her, hid my face behind me dark shades, and slipped out of the office unnoticed, clutching the slip of paper and the promise of a back alley ultrasound.
I think I bought dime bags in college that were more on the up and up than this. Seriously. Okay. Not seriously. I never actually bought dime bags. I just smoked other people's weed. In college. When I was young. And I didn't inhale. Anyway. You get my point.
I'm bringing Mike just in case something fishy goes down. You can never be too careful with those international white slavery rings hanging around and all that. Being as fertile as I am and all. I'm sure I'd be in demand.
So then, is it any surprise that I have yet to see a doctor this pregnancy. I'm 16 weeks along and the only reason I've seen anyone at all is because while in Chicago I had a bout of spotting that sent me into miscarriage flashback mode and I wouldn't rest until I saw via ultrasound a little bitty blob of a baby with a flickering heartbeat. Honestly, I could have done without the doctor and his dingbat nurse... and the damn Foley catheter they inserted into my urethra (oh, they just love their invasive procedures, don't they?)... and the fifteen blood tests they took... and don't get me started on the triage nurses and their complete lack of patient privacy, respect, or compassion. If they'd have just pointed me in the direction of the ultrasound machine, I would have done the damn ultrasound all myself. In fact, they had a student in there doing mine and I did help her. Look Ma! No classes!! I can do it all myself!
And I am.
It's not as if I'm not getting any prenatal care. I am just doing it all myself. I have a doppler and I listen to the baby's heart beat. I check my blood pressure using the monitor they have at the gym. I have a scale and weigh myself once a week. I am going to borrow (or buy) a glucose monitor and do my own 1 hour glucose test (using jelly bean instead of that god awful, nasty horrible orange gag it down concoction). I've thought about buying those urine test strips to check for sugar or protein in my urine, but honestly, I think if I have the glucose monitor and use that periodically and monitor my blood pressure and edema, there's no need. So, there it is. I am my own doctor.
Actually, truth be told, I think going to a doctor because you are pregnant is akin to going to a mechanic with a perfectly good, brand new car. You are only asking for trouble. Doctors (and mechanics for that matter) are trained to find out what is wrong with you and fix it. If you are pregnant, ain't nothing wrong, ain't nothing to fix. But, trust me, if you go to a doctor while pregnant (just like if you take your fresh off the lot car to a mechanic), he's gonna find something wrong and try to fix it. Usually, that ends up screwing up the perfectly functioning machine and throwing the whole damn process off kilter. My previous two pregnancies I stuck with midwives and learned from them that I'm making this baby all on my own. My body knows what it is doing. Sure, there may be a few bumps in the road, and if the need be, I'll have them checked. But otherwise, I'm absolutely able to do this completely alone. As have millions of women before me.
All this ranting aside, however, the fact that I have not seen a doctor or nurse or midwife this pregnancy has less to do with my own beliefs and more to do with the fact that the US military is farming me out to the Koreans. Allow me to explain. Mike is a Defense contractor. In the scheme of all things first come, first served, active duty members come first, followed by spouses and children, retirees and their families, DoD employees and their children, then the contractors themselves. After that come stray dogs and cats, North Korean women and children, wild birds, Canadian English teachers, enemy combatants, and then finally the lowliest of them all, the families of DoD contractors. Basically, what I'm saying is that you, whoever you are, reading this right now, YOU would come before me if seeking medical treatment at the Army hospital on base here.
When I was informed of this new policy (and yes, it is new -- we wouldn't have come here and gotten pregnant if we were told this up front), I asked where I could get a list of doctors that would take my insurance or that at least speak English. We don't have that, I was told. Call up a Korean hospital, was the suggestion.
"Got the number?" I asked.
"I'm not a phone book," was the more than helpful reply.
There it is. I don't know who to call, where to go, and who, if anyone, takes Aetna insurance. And quite frankly given my dislike for doctors, I'm just as happy to avoid the whole lot of them anyway. From what I've been told by my Korean friends, Korean doctors are even more arrogant and assnine than Americans. If you can believe it. So I'm just prick and pickled to have the perfect excuse to avoid the lot.
And yet, I do want to have my big 20 week ultrasound. Being 35 (I'll be 36 shortly after the baby is born), I want to see that my eggs haven't gone bad leaving me with a limbless child lacking ears or a nose. I look forward to it as a milestone in my pregnancy, a time to breath a small sigh of relief. But no doctor, no ultrasound. I finally went into the patient representative's office at the base hospital. There a friendly little Korean gal listened to my plight, picked up the phone and arranged for me to get an ultrasound. She handed me a slip of paper with the date (September 19th) written on it.
"Come to back of hospital before noon. There a van waiting, take you to ultrasound," she said in a whispered voice. Then, I swear, she looked around before continuing, "Bring $150 cash with you."
I thanked her, hid my face behind me dark shades, and slipped out of the office unnoticed, clutching the slip of paper and the promise of a back alley ultrasound.
I think I bought dime bags in college that were more on the up and up than this. Seriously. Okay. Not seriously. I never actually bought dime bags. I just smoked other people's weed. In college. When I was young. And I didn't inhale. Anyway. You get my point.
I'm bringing Mike just in case something fishy goes down. You can never be too careful with those international white slavery rings hanging around and all that. Being as fertile as I am and all. I'm sure I'd be in demand.
posted by The Histrionics of a Fat Housewife at 6:35 AM
6 Comments:
I'm with you! I have no problem digging out antibiotics for myself if I feel the onset of an ear infection or taking my hubby's 800mg Motrin. It's all good I say. Better living through pharmaceuticals... especially somebody else's!
Since we're active duty, I suppose you're right that you'd lag behind us in getting medical care. However, with all of our doctors deployed, they are sending active duty downtown to outside clinics. While normally I would cheer about seeing "real" doctors who didn't rank at the bottom of their medical class...that's not happening. You see.. they're sending us to the "FREE CLINIC!" Yep... no kidding.
Nothing like having to explain what a prostitute is to my 7 year old or try not to stare at the old man in need of a shower who is pacing back and forth across the waiting room petting his imaginary dog.
Free clinic be damned... we self medicate at my house!
Shelia
Wow....this is just crazy. Will Mike be assisting in the delivering the baby or you gonna just do that all yourself too? LOL It's not funny...but it kinda is...Luv ya!
As us Jewish gals say, OY!
LOL! You're very brave to be doing all this on your own but like you said, you know your body better than anyone else's and if I were tossed around like that and not given the proper medical attention, I would probably do the same as you. Just make sure someone else's hands catches that baby!
I laughed so hard at the part about the ultrasound and how the woman looked around so as not to get caught what she was telling you! Please keep us posted!!
Love your analogy of pregnancy and going to a car mechanic with a new car! Well said, indeed.
I learned the hard way that the best thing to do when pregnant is to leave it the hell alone. I had the worlds LEAST involved doctor who told me sagely "If something's gonna happen, it's gonna happen."
And of course, he was mostly right. He took the usual samples, and that was usually it. It took longer to get to him than I was in the office.
Looking back, it was nice on my second pregnancy, but not the first. The first you're freaky.
hehehe....I am the wife of an active duty service member and I have given birth to two babies here, in Germany. I saw German a German OB/GYN for al of my prenatal care and gave birth in a German hospital. While I was a little leary at first, I got the BEST prenatal care imaginable! My first two babies were born in the US...my doc was a private practice doc and it was a small, but modern hospital. I thought it couldn't get any better...but it did:)
Good luck to you and the wee sprout!
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